


World Full of Nothing

by flowersforgraves



Series: BTHB [22]
Category: Drunks and Dragons (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/pseuds/flowersforgraves
Summary: Junpei runs away from his problems, just like always.(Spoilers through ep 31)





	World Full of Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr user 13runks: exclusion/rejection with whatever you want
> 
> (card [here](https://flowersforgraves.tumblr.com/post/177921515881/); current list of claimed and filled prompts [here](https://flowersforgraves.tumblr.com/post/184328521711/))

He hadn’t wanted to leave. But with Tum dead, running away seems to be the best option. It’s selfish and twisted and his chest hurts with guilt, but he’s just been gifted -- “gifted,” hell, “tortured” is probably a more accurate word -- with years of memories dropped on him in an instant. He can be allowed some leeway. He’s fucking _died_ twice since they all woke up on slabs, and he figures this third life is three too many.

Junpei has never felt like he belonged anywhere. The adventuring party had been alright, for a time, but something had shifted, and he can feel himself pushing them away. He’s making them hate him, before they can come to it on their own. It’s easier if he’s the one doing it, not them. He’s an asshole, and then he’s a thief, and now he’s a fucking murderer. But at least it’s on his terms, not theirs.

Scarce comfort now, he thinks.

And apparently this is a pattern. Apparently Junpei has always been an outsider, even among his own people, even within his family. He’s a wizard, not because he wants to be, but because he needs stability and something to distract him from everything else. He uses his power as a substitute for social interaction, dresses in gaudy finery to forget that he’s alone, and drowns his sorrows in drink and drugs and magic.

The pattern’s not going to break now, he knows. Thom and Aludra deserve a better wizard than him, with all his fucked up issues and the shitty things he’s done that even he didn’t want to do. The cavalier death that falls in his wake won’t claim either of them, even if he had stayed long enough to see Tum die.

(When he closes his eyes he can’t see anything but the crumpled form of an old man lying in the middle of the street, and can’t feel anything but the last traces of his spell fading from his nerves.)

Maybe this time he’ll be able to do some real good before he fucks it all up again. Maybe this time he’ll die for real, because as soon as his debt to Geodude is paid, he won’t have any more holds on this life to bring him back. It’s too much to hope for that he won’t be an outsider here too.

He tells Aludra and Thom that he’s going with the pirates. They assume, as he’d hoped, that he’s signed on with them. He doesn’t tell them that he’s found a little place in the hold where he can curl up for a few hours, until the Astral Sea is the only thing visible in any direction and there’s nowhere for him to go.

Junpei swallows his fear -- the awful crawling sensation, prickling all over his skin at just the word _cannibalism_ \-- rubs his left arm, wonders if he’ll be able to make a workable prosthetic without magic -- and leaves in the dead of night like the fucking coward he is.


End file.
